Medical fraudsters are targeting Medicare recipients with schemes to persuade them to agree to genetic tests advertised as informing them if they are predisposed to specific chronic diseases or cancer Medicare scams involving orders for unnecessary, expensive testing are not new. However, clinical laboratory managers and anatomic pathologists need to be aware—particularly those working in hospital and health system labs—that an entirely new wave of fraud involving medical laboratory testing is...

Especially for busy hospital emergency departments, avoiding blood culture contamination is a constant challenge for those tasked with collecting blood culture specimens Better, faster diagnosis and treatment of sepsis continues to be a major goal at hospitals, health networks, and other medical facilities throughout the United States. Yet microbiologists and clinical laboratory managers continue to be frustrated with how frequently contaminated blood culture specimens show up in the...

Using animal blood, the researchers hope to improve the accuracy of AI driven diagnostic technology What does a cheetah, a tortoise, and a Humboldt penguin have in common? They are zoo animals helping scientists at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, find biomarkers that can help computer-assisted diagnoses of diseases in humans at early stages. And they are not the only animals lending a paw or claw. In their initial research, the scientists used blood samples that had been collected...

Based on clinical trials of the medical laboratory test, pregnant women can expect a reduced risk for experiencing complications associated with the dangerous blood disorder Clinical pathology laboratories and obstetricians in the UK may soon have a new blood test that can help provide earlier diagnoses of pre-eclampsia, a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that can cause liver and kidney disfunctions and, if untreated, can lead to eclampsia and deadly seizures. Following a clinical trial...

Following the raid, the company’s co-founders resigned from the board of directors Microbiome testing company, uBiome, a biotechnology developer that offers at-home direct-to-consumer (DTC) test kits to health-conscious individuals who wish to learn more about the bacteria in their gut, or who want to have their microbiome genetically sequenced, has recently come under investigation by insurance companies and state regulators that are looking into the company’s business practices. CNBC...

This new technology could replace needle biopsies and allow physicians to detect rejection of transplanted organs earlier, saving patients’ lives Anatomic pathologists may be reading fewer biopsy reports for patients with organ transplants in the future. That’s thanks to a new technology that may be more sensitive to and capable of detecting organ rejection earlier than traditional needle biopsies. When clinicians can detect organ transplant rejection earlier, patients survive longer....